The Health Law and Policy Program at GW Law convened experts and officials at the Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Accounts (ICHRA) Roundtable on May 28.
The roundtable provided a forum for stakeholders in health law and policy to discuss the future and potential of ICHRAs, which allow employers to provide tax-free funds for employees to purchase Affordable Care Act-compliant plans.
Academics, policymakers, think tank leaders, employers, and insurance industry representatives participated in the roundtable. They discussed efforts to expand the use of ICHRAs or similar devices that allow employers to utilize ACA marketplace exchanges, and policy proposals that affect these mechanisms.
GW Law Professor Barak Richman, the Alexander Hamilton Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Health Law and Policy Program, provided the welcome remarks for the event. Mark Bertolini, CEO of Oscar Health, gave the keynote address, where he emphasized the potential impacts of consumer-driven health insurance products on driving down health care costs.
Participants largely agreed that while ICHRA adoption has been growing, particularly among small and mid-size employers, more data and analysis among large employers are needed to understand the true potential of ICHRAs in the health care market and whether this policy can be effective at scale. Relatedly, the success of ICHRA is reliant on a robust and stable individual health insurance market, which is currently undergoing major shifts that threaten its stability.
"We brought these multiple perspectives together to see if there are common areas of agreement to make healthcare more accessible and affordable," Professor Richman said. "As academics, we have the capacity to facilitate conversation between divergent perspectives and use empirical research to guide decision-making. This is what universities are supposed to do."
The roundtable was one of many convenings hosted by the Health Law and Policy Program. In the fall, the program also hosted a symposium on the Inflation Reduction Act, which brought together experts and academics to examine the early implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s drug pricing provisions and in celebration of the anniversary of Medicare Part D. The program also hosted a convening earlier in May to discuss the role of private equity ownership in physician practices. That conversation included attorneys, physicians, policymakers, advocates, and private equity investors, with the goal of identifying the challenges and opportunities in private equity and physician practice ownership arrangements.
